


near and dear

by mutterandmumble



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Bad Flirting, Crack Treated Seriously, Crushes, Explicit Language, First Meetings, Humor, M/M, Pre-Relationship, this is all over the place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:55:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24139243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: So at the end of it, Akaashi is currently easing himself out from the relative safety of his cove so that he can go make a stupid decision. A very stupid decision, like talking to a human on the beach when he is in possession of some extremely conspicuous and verynon-humancharacteristics. If the scaled tail and the fleshy fins and the thin webs running frilled and full behind his ears don’t scare The Guy off, then surely the needlepoint teeth or webbed fingers will- and if he sticks around after that, then Akaashi will have to carry a decent conversation which is really the scariest possibility of all.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 8
Kudos: 81





	near and dear

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for mentions of death, but in a humorous and very non-serious context
> 
> I love mermaid aus so much mostly because they have the potential to be either really pretty or inherently ridiculous. This is the second. I’ve got three AP exams coming up, one brain cell left for each of them and none to expend on anything else. I also didn’t know how to end this, so at some point I just decided that it was good enough and went for it.
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy!!

There’s someone over on the shoreline, walking alone with his shoes held in hand and his head tilted back towards the sky- the same someone that’s been at the beach every day for the past two weeks, the one that comes puttering down the road in a beat-up old blue truck and then barrels into the water alongside a rotating cast of friends, his face set in an ever-present smile as he splashes and hoots and jumps from here to there and back again. He’s tall, constant in his choice of dress and his way of holding himself; his back is ramrod straight, and his chest puffs out beneath his thin cotton shirt, and his hair stands high on end right up until the moment he gets into the water. Akaashi can’t make it out in full from his usual haunt up near the rocks, but from what he can figure it’s black and white and slicked up into spikes- on  _ purpose,  _ he does that on  _ purpose,  _ and Akaashi is one part horrified, ten parts enamoured- like turrets that tuft and and twist once they’ve made contact with the sea.

Akaashi hasn’t seen him before these two weeks, and he suspects that once summer tears on through he’ll never see him again. Humans come and go from his little home fast as can be, showing up in droves and hiking cherry red coolers up on their hips, spreading towels patterned in stripes and dots in neat rows on the sand and staking umbrellas like tall, proud, and very, very  _ temporary  _ flags. Akaashi has seen it all, hidden in his cove in a curled-up wisp, tail folded nearly in two beneath him and fingers wound neatly into the sea-soaked rock. He’s seen parties in full swing and parties gone dead and cold, and he’s seen people walking alone and people walking in pairs and people walking all over other people, and he’s catalogued it all with the same measure of interest that he would give to any hobby that passes time. It's people watching, and it's easy and fun and that’s  _ all _ it is and all it will be, right up until the end.

So his watching this  _ someone  _ as he continues to wander along the beach, waves lapping lightly at his heels and footsteps pressed deep into the sand behind him, isn’t something strange in and of itself. The sun is high and hot, the sky bright bordering on electric; there’s a seagull cawing far overhead and Akaashi is tucked away in his pool, warm water up to his waist and skin stiffened by salt, tail flicking idly in blurs of blue and green. The guy on the beach, or  _ The Guy _ , as Akaashi’s begun to think of him (he’s never been the best at naming things- he’s plucked tens of hundreds of  _ thousands  _ of starfish from the sea in his life, and called all of them Starry) has taken to scrubbing his hand through his hair in nice rhythmic motions, sharp and neat. His shorts are a bright red and his shirt soft green, the colors clashing in a loud clatter of neons and muted shades as he walks and walks along without pause, getting closer by the minute. 

He’s getting  _ close _ . Closer than Akaashi lets most people get, but he’s seen The Guy over and over these past few days, and he knows enough of him to know that he’s not dangerous; enthusiastic yes, loud bordering on blaring, prone to blunders involving towels and umbrellas and other people’s sand castles, but not a threat. Akaashi is very, very good at scoping out threats, is even better at running when he needs to and fighting when he must, but he doesn’t think there’s cause for either right now.

Then again, something about Akaashi (that most everyone seems to find surprising, and he can’t figure out for the life of him _why_ ) is that when faced with someone attractive, whether they be on the beach or in the sky or in the water, he loses what little critical thinking (and consequently dignity) he’s managed to retain up until now. And The Guy is objectively attractive, with his hair and his muscles and his face and his muscles and his voice and his _muscles,_ and Akaashi’s seen and heard enough of him these past few days for one thing to lead to another, so right now he’s running a good ninety percent on instinct. Lovestruck Akaashi is a lot like daydreaming Akaashi is a lot like tired Akaashi is a lot like the sort of person to have half a thought in their head and half a mind to ignore it completely, and as lovestruck Akaashi is in control right now things are bound to get a little messy.

_ Messy  _ as in he’s currently easing himself out from the relative safety of his cove so that he can go make a stupid decision. A very stupid decision, like talking to a human on the beach when he is in possession of some extremely conspicuous and very  _ non-human  _ characteristics. If the scaled tail and the fleshy fins and the thin webs running frilled and full behind his ears don’t scare The Guy off, then surely the needlepoint teeth or webbed fingers will- and if he sticks around after that, then Akaashi will have to carry a decent conversation which is really the scariest possibility of all.

And even if by some small miracle he doesn’t bat an eye at Akaashi’s scaled and salt-strewn skin, even if he doesn’t run away after a minute or two of abysmal conversation, even if he doesn’t turn on his heel and bumble off to report Akaashi to whoever the proper authorities may be in this situation (there have to be some somewhere), The Guy could be gone tomorrow or in two days or the day after that, so getting attached would be… bad. Inadvisable. A stupid decision.

Akaashi’s going to do it anyways. It’s  _ his  _ stupid, lovestruck, dumbstruck and dumb decision to make, so he’s going to make it and he’s going to make the  _ best _ of it and he’s going to be  _ better _ for it, even if only until summer’s end. So he creeps out from the cove, careful as can be, tail twitching in nervous little stutters like the beat of a heart as the clouds spin into smooth pink drips over the horizon. The Guy has begun wading into the water, letting the sun shine warm and orange over his face as his eyes squeeze shut and his hands go lax at his side, shoulders rolling high enough to brush the sides of his neck. He looks calm, like he’s thinking about something big and grand like space or the sea or squids- he looks like he’s experiencing a good moment of catharsis, and Akaashi loves a good moment of catharsis as much as the next guy but he’s on a mission right now and if that mission involves him breaking up this moment of peace than so fucking be it.

He draws close, careful to keep the sounds of his swimming quiet. He runs his fingers once through his hair because he needs to look good and takes a deep breath in. He positions himself carefully so that the sharp turns of his cheekbones are visible, so that the sunlight catches on his tail  _ just so _ (he knows his strengths), makes it so that he’s close but not so close that he can’t make a quick exit if need be and then composes himself the best that he can.

Then he strikes _. _

“Hello.”

The Guy’s eyes snap open. They’re golden, like the sand or the sun or any other number of beautiful things. He looks at Akaashi, gaping like a fish, hair as on end as it always is and mouth going open and shut and open and shut. Akaashi tries to see if he can’t casually position his tail slightly closer to the surface of the water, because it really does look rather good in the light of the setting sun and god knows if there was ever a time for him to look rather good it’s now.

“Holy mother _ fucking-  _ hey what the  _ fuck, _ ” The Guy splutters, stumbling back. His shoes slip from his hand and drop to the sea,  _ splash-splash  _ one right after the other. He continues his retreat and doesn't quite make it to the shoreline, stops about three feet back right where the water barely brushes up against the hem of his shorts, and then he just stares for a moment. Wide-eyed, silent, looking scared half to death.

“Fuck,” he breathes. Then again: “ _ Fuck _ ,” but this one’s more grounded so Akaashi’s holding out hope that any minute now they’ll be able to hold something like an actual conversation. He hasn’t been run off yet and that’s a good sign, especially since there’s no way that The Guy hasn’t seen his fins and frills and scales, and if those haven’t sent him sprinting for the hills (and he’s not just in shock) than there’s really not much that Akaashi could do to fuck this up from here. 

“Are you real?” The Guy asks. He takes a step or two forwards, cautious as can be. Then something in his face snaps and he takes a  _ lot  _ of steps forward, not charging like a bull or a bullet but not exactly  _ slow  _ either, forging close enough and deep enough that the sea that it swirls up around his waist. He lifts a hand slowly out towards Akaashi’s tail, eyes glazed over in cloudy curls of confusion and curiosity. The hand stops an inch away, hovering light and unsure.

“Is this a hidden camera show? Do they still make those? I don’t really watch much TV, but Kuroo says that there’s some crazy shit out there, and I thought that those were all fake with like, contracts and actors and stuff but I haven’t signed any contracts and I  _ know  _ I’m not getting paid, so you’ve gotta be _ real  _ then , right? Not a trick or prank or something? A really good cosplay? You’re real? You’re real? You’re  _ real _ ?”

Akaashi doesn’t know what half of those words mean or what a  _ Kuroo  _ is, but he’s relatively certain that he’s real. Real enough to notice that The Guy is even more attractive up close anyways, even when he’s swaying back and forth like his world’s turning on its head (and shit that’s probably Akaashi’s fault isn’t it, it has to be the teeth it’s  _ always  _ the teeth), muttering about  _ real things  _ and  _ not real things _ and looking off to the horizon like he’ll find some answers there. He won’t, but Akaashi waits patiently anyways, just in case he’s wrong and the sun decides to lend a helping hand. But thirty seconds in the sun’s still not said a word, and the horizon hasn’t suddenly broken in two and started spouting words of wisdom, so Akaashi figures he better say something fast because The Guy’s looking more lost by the minute and he’d really like to start moving things along. They’ve gotta get to the good stuff, like the emotions and the declarations and probably the names at some point. Probably.

“My name is Akaashi,” Akaashi tries after a second more of this. “Akaashi Keiji.”

That snaps The Guy out of his stupor. Now his eyes are more wild than wide, and the spray of water from the sea has plastered his hair straight down over his forehead into triangles that cut sharp lines of black-and-white over his skin. It should not be a good look, but Akaashi thinks that once you get past the general frenzied vibes he’s giving off he makes it work in a  _ having a crisis but still looking cute  _ kinda way.

“Hello Akaashi, Akaashi Keiji!” The Guy warbles- a strange sound, like the half-trill of a dolphin- “I’m Bokuto! Bokuto Koutarou! You’re a fucking mermaid!”

Akaashi blinks. “Yes, I’m aware.”

“I think I fell asleep back on the beach,” Bokuto ( _ Bokuto Koutarou! _ ) tells him seriously, “And this is some sort of extended fever dream because I had some bad clams at the restaurant and didn’t want to say anything because our waiter looked like she was having a really bad day, so I just ate them and now I’m dying and this is part of that somehow and then when I’m actually dead, like  _ actually dead,  _ Kuroo’s going to kill me and then I’ll be dead twice.”

Dead twice? Is that something humans can do? Akaashi didn’t know that. 

“That’s unfortunate,” Akaashi settles on, polite as he can be without asking questions, about death or otherwise, because if this doesn’t go well then he’s never leaving his cove again and eventually he’s going to end up melting into the sea in a big puddle of embarrassment and latent self-loathing.

“A little bit,” Bokuto agrees. “I think dying might be a little bit inconvenient. Kind of hard to live when you’re dead.”

And that was a  _ little _ short, but Bokuto’s eyes are still sort of hazy and doesn’t look angry or offended so Akaashi’s considering this mission accomplished. He’s begun the slow but sure process of visibly calming down too, looking less like he’s about to shoot off into space and more like he’s experiencing something only mildly impossible instead of completely earth-shattering. He pops the knuckles of his left hand all in a row,  _ pop pop pop  _ one right after the other, and then he does his other hand and rolls his neck around in big circles until the life starts flooding back into him, one feature at a time.

“Mermaids, then,” he says, flexing his hands at his sides. “Mermaids. I always thought that if I were to meet something… not real, it’d be a ghost.”

“Hmm,” Akaashi hums. He doesn’t know what the fuck to say to that. “Why ghosts?”

“I dunno, man,” Bokuto says, shrugging. “There’s this huge house up on a hill right near where I live, and it’s super old and abandoned and stuff but I swear I saw someone turn on a light in there once and I’ve seen  _ tons  _ of horror movies, so I  _ know  _ that’s definitely a fucking ghost. I always thought that ghosts would be kinda cool though, other than the tryin’ to kill people thing they do in the movies, but the mermaids-” he grimaces, biting at his bottom lip. “Well I guess in the horror movies the mermaids are  _ also _ always trying to kill people. That’s why they’re horror movies. And hey, I gotta ask while we’re on the topic, are you um-” he leans close, voice dropping to a whisper and bizarrely conspiratorial for the question Akaashi assumes is coming next. “ _ Are _ you going to kill me?”

It had to be the teeth. It’s  _ always  _ the teeth.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Great, great, that’s great!” Bokuto laughs, borderline hysterical but Akaashi’s been there so he knows how it is. He stands upright, clapping his hands together. “You do seem pretty cool! Way too cool to try and kill me!” 

Internal Akaashi dies. Then internal Akaashi dies again, twice like a human apparently can, because Bokuto thinks that he looks  _ cool  _ even though he’s not a ghost and if Bokuto thinks that he looks  _ cool  _ then that has to mean something good, right? Looking cool is  _ good, right _ ? He ought to say something  _ cool  _ now to keep the whole  _ cool  _ thing going,  _ right? _

“Yes,” he says, smooth like the sea. “Yes. Cool. Me. Thank you.”

Nailed it.

He shoots a surreptitious glance at Bokuto’s face to see if he can’t gauge just how  _ cool  _ that was, but Bokuto’s back to looking at the horizon, squinting and tilting his head and tapping at the side of his leg. He looks like he’s thinking about something very important, so Akaashi supposes that he can deal with his general coolness being ignored, just this once. Just this once.

“Can I ask you something, since you’re not gonna kill me?” Bokuto starts, slowly in the way of a person who’s right on the cusp of coming to terms with things. “Like something about mermaids? While we’re here?”

“Go ahead,” Akaashi says, half-disappointed that his stellar conversational skills didn’t get so much as a blink and half ( _ coolly _ ) jittering in anticipation about what it is that Bokuto’s going to ask him- something insightful he’s sure, something about the implications of his existence, or the extent of his knowledge regarding humanity, or even mermaid politics which surely must be something interesting to the uninitiated, or-

“How do you breathe?” 

That works too.

Akaashi blinks at him. “How do I breathe?”   
  


“Yeah!” Bokuto exclaims, nodding vigorously. He bounces on the heels of his feet, hair moving in time. It’s hypnotic, really, the white and black blurred into gray blurred into his hairline, blurred down into the lines of his nose. “Like if you can breathe underwater do you have gills? Like a fish? But things with gills can’t breathe above water but _you_ can, but you look like you’re breathing with lungs right now so does it like switch back and forth, or do the gills close up or are you like a frog or something?”

“Am I… like a frog,” Akaashi says dryly. That’s a new one. This whole conversation is one big mess of firsts. 

“Well I did a report on frogs in my second year of middle school and I don’t remember much of it but I’m pretty sure they can breathe through either their skin or their lungs once they’re adults, but they have gills when they’re younger. And I mean, I don’t really know how any of  _ this  _ works-” here there’s a sort of helpless gesture towards the world as a whole, beginning and ending somewhere near Akaashi’s head, “- but things can only breathe in so many ways, and frogs live in and out of water and  _ you  _ live in and out of water, so...”

He shrugs. And as for the frogs, Akaashi wouldn’t know one way or another  _ how  _ they breathe or why, but frankly if Bokuto had told him that the sky was falling he’d go seek shelter immediately so as far as Akaashi is concerned frogs breathe through their skin now whether they like it or not. As for  _ him _ , and things regarding  _ him,  _ well those always have to be more difficult don’t they?

“I’m not sure,” he says. He’s not about to  _ lie.  _ “I’ve never really thought about it. Never had reason to, I suppose”

“Yeah, I get it” Bokuto replies, scrunching his face. “It seems really confusing, honestly, and I think that if I have to deal with any more confusing things today I’m gonna fucking- explode or some shit. You wanna just say magic and leave it at that?”

“Let’s just say magic and leave it at that,” Akaashi agrees, thoroughly relieved that he’s not going to have to bullshit something based on his very limited knowledge of fish and humans and other merpeople. He really doesn’t get out all that much, not enough to cobble together a passable understanding of what Bokuto’s asking- there’s too much stuff to do, too many people doing too many things, too many fish in the sea. It’s overwhelming. 

“You’re pretty nice, Akaashi,” Bokuto says with a great big smile and the beginnings of a laugh, and Akaashi adds nice next to cool in the list of things he’s been called today that he’s never been called before, not even once. “Your tail’s really pretty too! And your eyes, and your fins, and-”

His own eyes go wide and he trails off, bright red and rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, the little hitch in his chest from earlier growing into a full-bodied laugh that travels from his head to his toes and back again. “Well that was embarrassing. I think we should ignore that.”

Akaashi would love to reply, but his soul is currently fleeing his body and soulless husks don’t lend themselves particularly well to coherency. If he was happy when Bokuto thought he was  _ cool  _ then right now, right now in the moments after he learned that Bokuto thinks that his tail and eyes and fins are  _ pretty-  _ well, Akaashi’s never been the best with words in the first place but he feels like every single syllable he’s ever even dreamed of has melted down to mush. 

“Hey, Akashi-”

“Akaashi,” Akaashi croaks out through the cheery little waves and whoops that have replaced the last bits of his logical thought.

“Hey, Akaashi, can I ask you something?”

Well okay, Akaashi guesses that they really are  _ ignoring that.  _ He can work with this. He’s just gotta come across as nice, or nice adjacent or civil or like someone who’s  _ not _ currently thirty seconds from imploding because the hot human from the beach is being nice to him.

“Again?”

“A different something,” Bokuto huffs, petulant. “Something good! And interesting, I promise!”

“Ask away then,” Akaashi tells him, amused and really, really hoping that this will buy him some more time to collect himself. Bokuto scrunches his face up and mulls it over, looks directly at his tail for thirty seconds and then at his fins, and all the while Akaashi sees if he can’t pull his scattered thoughts back together into something presentable. 

“Will you be here tomorrow?”

Apparently he fucking can’t. He makes a noise that’s strangled by all rights but high-pitched enough at the end to pass for inquisitive, and then he stares Bokuto down because he is  _ very  _ overwhelmed and  _ very  _ happy at the moment, and if he tries to talk then all of that’s going to come pouring out of him in a big blurry mess.

“That’s all you wanted to know? If I’m going to be here tomorrow?” he asks, then winces as that came off as much more accusatory than he intended and he’s too busy making leeway to come across as  _ accusatory. _

“No!” Bokuto nearly shouts, waving his hands. “Well  _ yes,  _ but  _ no,  _ and yes, it’s just there’s so much  _ more  _ that I wanna ask you about but it’s getting dark and my friends are going to start wondering where I am, and if they get too worried then they’ll get security involved- it’s happened before and we all know it’ll happen again- but there’s so  _ much  _ that I still want to ask about so I figured that if you’re still here tomorrow, we can meet up! Then maybe the day after that, too, because I’m still here for another month, and you’ve gotta tell me all about the cool underwater cities and stuff. Unless that’s against some super secret mermaid code or something.”

Akaashi grimaces because this whole thing is indeed against some  _ super secret mermaid code,  _ but the muscles. God, the  _ muscles. _

“I’ll be here,” he says, deciding right then and there that the  _ super secret mermaid code  _ conversation is a conversation for another day. “If you’d like to meet up around sunset again?”

“Yeah! Sunset it is! I’m gonna make a list. We’re going to have  _ so much  _ shit to talk about.”

“Looking forward to it,” Akaashi says. His voice doesn’t waver, and he’s very happy for that; he’s hit his limit for embarrassment today, and things are going too well to jeopardize with a voice crack or two. 

“Me too!” Bokuto exclaims. “But I really have to start heading back now before it gets dark because then they’ll  _ definitely  _ freak out, and hey, can I ask one more favor before I go?”

Again, again, by this point Akaashi would give him the sun if he asked very nicely. 

“Of course.”

Bokuto winces, face going red, part from embarrassment and part from the reflection of the darkening sky over the water as he kicks a leg until the sea splashes up and around his knee, splattering splotches of water in one neat line over his chest.

“Can you help me find my shoes?” he finally bursts out, looking downright  _ mortified,  _ hair drooping and eyes darting and hands wringing at his sides. Immediately Akaashi’s hit with the image of Bokuto as he was not twenty minutes ago, face drawn hollow like a fish and eyes bugging wide, surprise written in through one ear and right out the other as his shoes dropped from his hand-  _ splash, splash! _ \- right into the sea. He thinks of that, and he thinks of Bokuto as he is now (twenty minutes on), no longer The Guy but someone that Akaashi knows and will know more in the coming days, and he brings the back of his hand up to his mouth to hide his laughter. Bokuto pouts at him, hands on his hips and the collar of his soft green shirt stretching taut just beneath the curve of his shoulders, looking disgruntled and disheveled beneath the near-dead light of the sun.

“Don’t laugh!” he says, reaching out to flick Akaashi’s shoulder. Even when soaked in the seawater, he’s warm. “If you hadn’t surprised me, I wouldn’t have even dropped them!”

“And you wouldn’t have known that mermaids were real,” Akaashi counters. “Quite the tradeoff, I think.”

“They were  _ really good  _ shoes.”

“And I’m giving you some  _ really good  _ information.”

“ _ Akaaashiiii _ ,” Bokuto whines. “Akaashiiii,  _ you made _ me lose my shoes so now  _ you  _ have to help me find them! It’s basic decency!”

“Bold words,” Akaashi says. But he shoots on off to the side anyways, makes it clear with a small smile and a twitch of his tail that he’s searching through the sand like any  _ really good  _ friend (or acquaintance of twenty minutes, friendship pending) would do. It takes some digging through the silt and sand, but between the two of them they manage to fish out one sandal and then the other moments before the sun dips fully beneath the horizon. Bokuto leaves with little fanfare soon thereafter, wading off onto the shore with a promise for the  _ same time tomorrow;  _ Akaashi watches as he takes off in a run, obviously desperate to return to his friends, and thinks that upon further reflection, the colors of his shirt and shorts and hair really aren’t all  _ that _ bad after all, and in fact just might be the second best thing he’s seen all day.

(The first, of course, being the way that Bokuto had smiled right before he’d run off, slightly lopsided and sweet, without a hint of nerves but with all the implicit promise of the coming days in a way that made Akaashi’s heart leap into his throat.)

And maybe getting attached is a mistake-  _ another month,  _ Bokuto had said, and Akaashi has the creeping sense that  _ another month  _ won’t be nearly enough- but what’s one more stupid decision? As far as bad things or things that can hurt go, in regards to lapses in judgement or  _ bad decisions,  _ Akaashi thinks that he could have done worse. Much, much worse. So without a hint of shame, he cuts through the water and to his cove, feeling the sea rock against his back as the light of the moon eats everything whole and leaves it silver-gold, softer than it looks during the day. He pulls himself back into his pool, and then it’s off to too much thinking and no sleep to show for it; he still has to screen potential conversation topics and questions, has to ponder the dangers and risks versus reward. It’s a stupid decision, to forgo sleep, one that he’ll surely be paying for come morning, but he’s made stupider ones.

And he’s yet to regret any of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment if you made it this far!! I love hearing from you guys!!


End file.
